1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wood chippers and, more particularly, to a multiple wheel feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known to provide a wood chipper for chipping wood such as brush, branches, and the like to produce wood chips. An example of such a wood chipper is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5, 988, 539 to Morey. In this patent, the wood chipper includes an infeed chute, feed wheel assembly, and a cutting assembly having a rotatable disc with at least one knife or blade for chipping the wood entering the wood chipper and reducing it to wood chips. Typically, the feed wheel assembly includes a feed system having a stationary lower feed wheel connected to a lower housing and a movable upper feed wheel connected to an upper housing movable relative to the lower housing for allowing wood to enter the cutting assembly. The feed wheel assembly also includes a spring interconnecting the upper housing and the lower housing to urge the upper feed wheel toward the lower feed wheel to apply a spring force against the wood entering between the feed wheels to feed the wood to the cutting assembly.
Although this type of feed wheel assembly has worked well, it is desirable to reduce a pinch point between the upper feed wheel and the lower feed wheel. It is also desirable to provide a feed wheel assembly to allow larger diameter wood to enter the wood chipper virtually effortlessly by an operator without moving a hydraulic lift. It is further desirable to provide a feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper, which increases the distance between the pinch point and the operator and reduces a kick up of the wood material when fed in by an operator under normal or extreme operating conditions. Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide a multiple wheel feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper to that meets these desires.
Accordingly, the present invention is a multiple wheel feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper including an infeed chute and a rotatable cutting assembly spaced from the infeed chute. The multiple wheel feed wheel assembly also includes a first feed wheel disposed between the infeed chute and the cutting assembly. The multiple wheel feed wheel assembly further includes a second feed wheel spaced longitudinally between the first feed wheel and the infeed chute to feed wood material to the first feed wheel.
One advantage of the present invention is that a new and multiple wheel feed wheel assembly is provided for a wood chipper. Another advantage of the present invention is that the multiple wheel feed wheel assembly is provided that has four feed wheels positioned horizontally and spaced vertically with a forward pair of feed wheels located in front of a rear pair of feed wheels to move the pinch point further away from the operator. A further advantage of the present invention is that the multiple wheel feed wheel assembly has allows the forward upper feed wheel to be spaced a predetermined distance from a forward lower feed wheel to allow large diameter wood material to be fed virtually effortlessly in feeding wood to the cutting assembly by an operator and to reduce the tendency of the wood material to kick upwardly.